AMARA

CW: Contains themes of death and psychological distress

It was the night of the 6th of October when I brought home the paints and canvases. Amara had been reading in the sitting room with that damn cat of hers—Toffee. He was a demon to me, but to her, the perfect little angel.

I remember her getting up, her voice sharp, piercing the stillness of the house.

“Where did these come from? How did you afford all this? Why so many?”

I didn’t lie. Not completely. The paints and canvases did come from Gunner’s Art Supply Store, and I told her I got a little extra in tips. But the truth was, that part was just another smudge on the canvas of our marriage.

Back then, I couldn’t tell if she believed me. Her eyes—unblinking, unreadable—always made me uneasy. I’d often wonder if she saw more than I wanted her to. I let it slide. Why wouldn’t I? She was alive. And still mine.

It wasn’t just her eyes though—it was that cat, Toffee. He was never far from her side, watching me as if he could read my every thought. Every time I met his gaze, the air would turn cold, a quiet accusation in those amber depths. That cat unnerved me, and Amara knew it. She loved him for it.

It wasn’t until after she passed that her silence weighed heavier. The 6th of October had marked the last time she’d asked me anything. Soon after, she stopped speaking altogether. A sickness, they said, one that drained the life from her so quickly I barely had time to process it. I noticed her growing weaker, her footsteps softer, her breaths more labored. One morning, she didn’t rise. Her lips were dry, her skin sunken, as if something had drained the life from her in the night. I stood there, staring at her body as Toffee curled around her feet, purring like it was any other day.

Amara was gone. And I—I felt free.

Even in death, her eyes haunted me. Amara now rested in a sarcophagus, her beauty preserved in cold, lifeless gold. But I could still feel her presence in the house—the same unreadable gaze as if she knew something I didn’t. The house, the halls—they belonged to me now. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone.

After the interment, on the 26th of October, I took up my easel. I set it up in the attic, where the big bay window overlooked the vast beyond of our acre. I chose the perfect reds and yellows for this canvas. I intended to bring to life an image of that acre, but the finishing painting was nothing I’d expect.

The landscape was beautiful, as expected, but what drew my eye were the eyes I had painted on a few of the treetops. And they were wonderful eyes. The painted illusion of wetness and sclera was perfect and unnerving in its realism. I stared at them, my breath catching in my throat, unsure if they were watching me back.

I had unlocked my third eye in a way, or what my now-passed wife would call, my Horus.

I signed my name at the bottom left, Dominic Faust. Turning the canvas into the sun of the window, I exhaled. I remember how wide I smiled; I think I even jumped for joy.

That evening, after setting and drying the painting, I sold it. The collector’s praises filled my ears, and more importantly, his coin filled my pockets. I had to make more, to capitalize on my newly founded artistry. I was going to be one of the best artists this land had ever seen.

Or, that’s how I thought it would be.

On November 24th, I noticed how much better the eyes were looking, especially the reimagined Horus eye I crafted. The veins were like rich wine, the iris a swirl of greens, browns, and blues, and the pupil—so lifelike—seemed to swell as I stared at it. Toffee had slipped into the room without a sound. I noticed him out of the corner of my eye, staring at the painting from the shadows. His eyes—just as amber, just as alive as the ones on the canvas—seemed to glow.

“Out,” I muttered, waving a hand. He didn’t move. He just sat there, watching. For a moment, I wasn’t sure if I was staring at Toffee or the painting. Maybe both. I rubbed my eyes, and shook off the feeling. I hadn’t slept properly in days.

My watch told me it was ten after eight, and I decided to call it a night. But sleep was no relief.

My nightmares were vivid—too vivid. Amara stood before me in an inky pool of black, the sapphires in her eyes casting a bright blue light on me. Every time I tried to shy away from the glow, she reappeared, closer, her eyes burning into me. Her voice was a whisper, but the words were like nails driven into my skull.

At first, I couldn’t understand her. It was like a language I didn’t know, and yet I knew it deep in my bones. Sedjam Iret. The words echoed in my ears when I woke, her voice still clear.

It means "listen to the eye." But by then, I had already listened too long.

The 31st day of October marked the moment I would face my penance. All Hallows’ Eve—the Devil’s day. I should have known it would end like this. Fate had been waiting for me to slip, as I completed what I believed to be my greatest masterpiece yet. It was a sapphire eye, brilliant and alive against a black matte background. The blues of the sclera gleamed like wet stone, each stroke more deliberate than the last. It was almost too perfect.

As the paint dried, I stepped closer, unable to resist. I reached out, fingers trembling as they hovered over the delicate strands of the wispy eyelashes. I had painted every hair, every detail with such precision—no, with something beyond precision. Obsession.

The moment my fingertips brushed the canvas, I felt it—the soft, fine hairs of real lashes, tingling against my skin. My breath hitched, my heart stuttering in my chest. It was not the rough texture of dried paint I expected but something warm, something alive.

I could have prepared myself for this moment, but the truth is, I had been long forewarned. My destiny had been sealed the moment I picked up that brush.

I jumped back, colliding with the wall behind me. The room had shrunk, I was sure of it. Panic surged as I made the mistake of turning away from the eye, searching desperately for the attic’s exit. Fine tendrils of hair began winding around my body—round and round—binding my arms to my sides like a mummification ritual. My head was forced upward, and I saw the sapphire eye now hanging from the ceiling, casting its cold blue light over my trembling form.

I couldn’t tell which was worse—being bathed in that unnatural glow or the feeling of Toffee coiling around my legs, his purring rumbling against my skin, sending shivers up my bound limbs.

The ground beneath my bare feet shifted from solid wood to something slick and wet—more like viscera than paint. I strained against the force keeping my head pinned to the ceiling and glanced down. A scream caught in my throat, leaving my lips trembling in silence. Below me was a massive brown eye, and I stood directly in its dark, inky pupil. The surface oozed up, swallowing my restraints.

“Sedjam Iret... Sedjam Iret... Sedjam Iret.”

More tendrils coiled around me, pulling me into the eye’s depths—into the viscous, gelatinous pool of the cosmic pupil. It pulsed, expanding and contracting like a mouth about to devour its prey. With every beat, I sank deeper, the black ooze climbing past my thighs. The pupil gaped, stretching wide like a hungry maw, pulling me in until only my head remained above the surface.

The tendrils squeezed tighter, but my eyes—left untouched—were forced to witness as I was sucked down into the ravenous abyss.

I woke, expecting to be in my bed, hoping it had all been a nightmare. I reached for the cup of water beside me, but my arms refused to move—bound. Layers of wet eyelashes wound around them, prickling my skin with each twitch. I tried to scream, but my tongue fought against curls of hair creeping toward my throat, threatening to choke me if I resisted.

“Dominic.”

My eyes darted frantically through the dark, and then the low, ominous purring began, filling my ears. A cold blue light pierced the endless black, revealing a twisted grove of shadows and the blue sapphire glow I had seen before.

My wife approached, draped in golds and lush silks, her headpiece resting against her raven hair—but her eyes... they were no longer hers. In their place were cold, gleaming sapphires. In her arms, she cradled that demonic cat, Toffee, who purred softly, as if it were any other evening. As she glided closer, the eerie blue light intensified, bathing everything in its sickening glow.

This was no empty abyss—far worse. It was a cavern, walls lined with canvases covered in eyes. My eyes. They pulsed and whispered, a chorus of voices echoing the words “Sedjam Iret.” The entire room felt alive with a grotesque awareness, as though the eyes themselves were watching, judging, and waiting. Amara's approach was slow, deliberate, her gaze unrelenting.

The weight of Toffee on my chest became unbearable, like a stone pressing me into the abyss. Every heartbeat echoed in my skull, its rhythm matching the pulsing of the canvases. Each eye bore witness to my torment, reflecting back the desperation and dread I tried to suppress.

As Amara knelt before me, her shimmering hands lifted, revealing two perfect sapphires—too perfect, too unreal. They glinted in the blue light, a mockery of beauty. I strained to see her face, to find a flicker of warmth in those cold, crystalline depths, but all I found was an emptiness that echoed the void around me.

“Sedjam Iret,” she whispered again, her voice low and melodic, sending shivers down my spine. I could feel the pull of her command deep within me, like an irresistible tide dragging me into the depths of despair. I swallowed hard, desperate to speak, to scream, to beg for release, but the strands of hair thickened around my throat, choking the words before they could escape.

As the plastic gems descended toward my eyes, the whispers of the canvases grew louder, drowning out all thought. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the deception, the twisted love I had chased for so long. But it was too late; they pressed down, blocking out the world, the light, the very essence of what had once been Amara.

In that moment, I understood—I had painted my own prison, bound in layers of my own making. The echoes of “Sedjam Iret” filled my mind, a final lamentation of my failure. I was forever trapped in this realm of painted eyes, a canvas in her gallery, my fate sealed in the very darkness I had embraced.

As the blue light faded and all fell silent, I knew I would remain here, a silent witness to the art I had created, haunted by the specter of my beloved wife and the weight of my choices, forever entwined with Toffee in this never-ending nightmare.